Tolga Karaçelik The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer

Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Tolga Karaçelik’s The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer

Published on November 16, 2023

Completely off trade news radar, we learned that Turkish filmmaker Tolga Karaçelik moved into production on his English-language debut this past June with none-other than Steve Buscemi in the driver’s seat. Karaçelik has been to Park City on two previous trips bringing Ivy (2015) and 2018’s Butterflies (which was the Grand Jury Prize Award winner). Shot in New York City, this fourth feature film goes by the title of The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer and saw The Wolf of Snow Hollow cinematographer Natalie Kingston on the project. It’ll have to be rushed to be included in the fest due to the production start date.

Gist: A struggling writer in the midst of a divorce befriends a retired serial killer who incidentally becomes his marriage counselor by day, and killing counselor for his next book by night.

Production Co./Producers: Wren Arthur, Scott Aharoni, Mustafa Kaymak, Sinan Eczacibasi, Özge Bulut Marasli.

Prediction: U.S. Dramatic Competition.

Sales: TBD.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).